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The Indiana Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two cases on June 30, one of which involves the reversal of a $42 million damages award given to an Avon man who was seriously injured in a 2017 crash with a Tesla.
At 9 a.m., the state’s high court will hear oral arguments in the case, Shepard Wrex Management, LLC v. The Estate of Betty M. Scott and Fashion Cleaners, Inc.
The court accepted the appeal from appellant Shepard Wrex Management, which owns property that once held a dry-cleaning business owned by William and Betty Scott. The Scotts had been working with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management for more than 10 years to remediate their tetrachloroethylene-contaminated property when Shepard Wrex purchased the property.
After a storm damaged remediation equipment on the property, Shepard Wrex refused to allow the Scotts on the property to repair it, according to court documents. The Scotts sued for an injunction to gain access to the property, and Shepard Wrex countersued for criminal trespassing and an environmental legal action. The Madison Circuit Court denied the Scotts’ injunction but also denied Shepard Wrex’s counterclaim arguments.
The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s ruling on Shepard Wrex’s counterclaims.
The state Supreme Court will now take up Shepard Wrex’s argument on his environmental legal action counterclaim, in which he’s seeking to recover costs under Indiana’s Environmental Legal Action statute.
The case is Shepard Wrex Management, LLC v. The Estate of Betty M. Scott and Fashion Cleaners, Inc., 26S-PL-00155 and will be streamed online.
At 10 a.m., the court will hear arguments in the case, Tesla, Inc. f/k/a Tesla Motors, Inc. and Kyle Kaszuba v. Annamarie Dugan Norris, as Guardian of the Estate of Christopher Dugan, an Incompetent Person.
In 2017, Christopher Dugan was riding his motorcycle when he was hit by a Tesla driven by Kyle Kaszuba, who had been driving the company-issued vehicle to a gas station to fill up the tank in accordance with an informal employee policy requiring employees to not return a vehicle with less than a quarter of a tank of gas, according to court documents.
Dugan sued Tesla and Kaszuba, arguing Tesla was vicariously liable for the crash because Kaszuba was operating in the scope of his employment when the crash occurred. Kaszuba also filed a motion for partial summary judgment, arguing the same point.
Tesla filed a cross-motion for summary judgment, arguing that Kaszuba driving the Tesla does not mean he was operating under the scope of his employment in accordance with Indiana’s “going and coming” rule, which states that employees on their way to work are not operating within the scope of their employment.
The Marion Superior Court granted summary judgment for Dugan and Kaszuba after finding Tesla should be vicariously liable for Kaszuba’s negligence since he wouldn’t have been turning into the gas station had it not been for the employee policy. A jury found Tesla liable for $60 million in damages, which is reduced to $42 million after the jury found Dugan to have 30% comparative fault.
The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the summary judgment granted to Dugan and Kaszuba but reversed and remanded for a new trial the damages award, stating that Annamarie Dugan Norris failed to rebut the presumption of error that came from the trial court’s ex parte conversations with jurors during the jury trial.
During the March 2024 trial, the court and counsel for the parties believed the jury was at an impasse. In response, the court sent several notes to the presiding juror, though at Tesla’s objection, asking about the impasse. The court was initially going to declare a mistrial, but after speaking with jurors, “ungranted” the mistrial. Shortly after, the jury reached a verdict to award the $60 million in damages.
The appellate court stated it could not rule out that the ex parte conversation by the judge did not influence the jurors to make a decision.
The state Supreme Court has accepted Tesla’s appeal to transfer the case on two arguments:
- Whether Indiana’s “going and coming” rule should apply in this case.
- Whether the cumulative impact of errors made at trial collectively prejudice a party, even if the individual errors could be deemed harmless in isolation.
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